Ring it out, Ring it in

  It's the first day of January in the year 2012! "Happy New Year", I've been saying to everyone that I talk to over the last few days.  Last night was low key here in our household. Early to bed, with a midnight wake up kiss from Jonathan, and I was back to sleep before my head hit the pillow. I did look at the clock precisely at 12:00, so thanks to Jonathan I was officially "there" for the New Year's first minute.
  Yesterday as I was trail riding a brown mare through the fields, I started reminiscing about New Year's eve's from the past. As a kid I remember always thinking that night was such a big deal. My Mom and Dad would get dressed up to go to a party. Dad would be in his hunter green polyester leisure suit, with his sideburns combed just right. Mom would have on a swanky polyester dress, usually multi-colored, with her shag hairdo coiffed to perfection and a fresh pack of Tareyton 100's in her clutch (she gave up smoking early on in my childhood-fyi).  I would be set up with root beer floats to concoct, a sundae smorgasbord and movies to watch, usually with a friend over to keep me company. We'd stay up to watch the ball drop in Times Square, before we'd fade off to sleep in our Holly Hobby sleeping bags.

  As a young adult NYE took on a different meaning. It was supposed to be THE NIGHT of the year to par-tay. Expectations were high and lots of planning went into making sure it was a night to remember. Most of the time it was a night to forget, or at least I forgot most of it along the way.  I remember leaving a perfectly fun party at my in-law's house in CT to pile a bunch of us into a Volkswagen Jetta and head to another party in NYC. Somehow we got stuck on the highway and ended up ringing in the New Year en route. Everyone in the car was fighting, my brother in law's girlfriend was crying and by the time we actually made it to the party I immediately found a horizontal position on a bed and fell asleep. That was really my last attempt at making NYE some kind of fantastical, magic night. I learned that  you don't have to get all dressed up, you don't have to drink till you drop, you don't even have to leave your house to have a good time on the last night of the year. Meanwhile, I do have high expectations for 2012. The first day of the new year is a perfect day to take charge of your life and confront what you want to change.  It's all about opportunities in life and whether you choose to take them, or create them, or let them pass you by is up to you. I'm brimming with optimism about the upcoming year and I can't wait to see where it takes us. Cheers to 2012!

Be still my heart

  This Christmas we received a most fabulous gift. An espresso machine!! It's made by Nespresso and it's simple to use, delicious to drink, and I'm worried about adding another addiction to my life. Seriously, it's so damned good. I've always been a big fan of strong coffee, but truth be told I'd never tried espresso. I always figured I didn't have the chops to handle the boldness of the flavor. I've heard people at Starbucks ordering lattes with skim, or half caff and cappuccinos with foam, etc., but I never got past ordering a plain ole coffee, which I would carefully doctor with half/half and sugar with the precision of a mad scientist. Coffee is so taste specific. I can't drink my husband's version of coffee. Too much sugar, not enough cream. Yet, if I get him a coffee and add two drops too many of cream, he will not drink it and deems it "disgusting". I always think the next line after he waves away the ruined brew will be, "Off with her head". It seems that serious of an offense to mess with a person's cuppa coffee.
  But I digress (which I can blame wholeheartedly on the amount of caffeine racing through my bloodstream). Back to the espresso, oh heavenly dark nectar, blessed magic, foamy brew.  I learned on the first morning we had the machine that doing a back to back cup for a novice drinker was a BIG mistake. Rather like when you drink your first alcoholic beverage and think to yourself, "Heck, I don't even feel it. May as well have another." And so you do. And then you feel it.  After downing my second cup with a satisfying smack of my lips, I began to feel an inner vibration. It started in my chest, wrapped around my heart and went up to my eyeballs. My eyeballs began to spasm in their sockets. I lost all ability to concentrate. Paranoia set in due to my lack of ability to concentrate, and I was suddenly the most ADD person on the planet with ideas and worries playing a ping pong match in my cracked out brain. Espresso, I learned that fateful morning is not only delicious, but it's serious shit.  I had tons of stuff that I'd wanted to get done that morning and guess what I got done? Nothing. Unless you want to count checking Facebook every ten minutes.  Touche, espresso. I'm a big girl and learned my lesson. As with most things in life that are almost TOO enjoyable to be true, moderation is the key with espresso drinking. At least until you get some practice under your belt, which I aim to do one luscious, heart stopping cup at a time.

Holiday Spirits

     Now it's always fun to get into the holiday spirit, but when you combine that with holiday spirits (read:booze) things can get a little tricky.  We hosted a low key holiday party this past weekend, just a few friends, casual dinner, drinks by the Christmas tree, etc. For some reason, the day of the party I woke up feeling exhausted. All day I dragged myself from one chore to the next, shoving the vacuum across the floor, swishing a rag splashed with Pledge over the furniture, throwing together a large vat of Provencal Vegetable soup and numerous other details that had to be attended to. Before the guests arrived I mixed myself a martini (my usual cocktail of choice) and sat down to catch my breath. In the nick of time the vodka began to weave its way through my veins, giving me a renewed vigor and voila, it was time to greet the first guests. And I was ready!

 All was going smoothly (as smoothly as my second martini was going down), and the guests were happily chatting, drinking and snacking on appetizers. It was around that time when I started to get a little fuzzy in the brain department.  We set out the dinner and I sat down to eat a large bowl of beef bourguignon, which I supplemented with a few big pieces of bread & butter (helps to soak up the poison in theory). Don't get me wrong, I'm no amateur when it comes to handling my liquor, but vodka is a sneaky little fellow. You can be fine one minute then WHAM, you're wasted. This my friends, is what happened to me. I became the Sloppy Drunken Hostess. I'm reporting this with great remorse, not pride. I'm pretty sure that I didn't say anything too stupid, or make too much of an ass out of myself, except for the moment after dinner when I attempted to sit on a heavily Pledged wooden chair, slid off the side and hit the floor. Yup. At that moment, my pal Hot Shame came over to join me. His presence made my cheeks go red and fill me two new feelings-embarrassment and humiliation. Two of my good friends were sitting with me and witnessed my "bobble", but as I recall neither of them reacted. That means we all drink enough to know that someone is going to get sloppy at some point and they were glad the lottery skipped them, or they were too drunk themselves to actually stand up to help me.  What I do know is that the minute Hot Shame joined me I became sober. Well, not totally sober but I gathered my wits and pulled my wasted self together before I had more to regret than a bruised backside. The rest of the party carried on without incident, except for a dropped glass platter on our front walk that totally shattered. As I was kneeling down to pick up glass shards,  I realized my theory of it's not a great party till someone falls down, or breaks something had to come to fruition. I just wish I hadn't been the one to fall down. I wished that over and over again in the middle of the night. But I did. I guess we've all had a turn at being the Sloppy Drunken Hostess at one point or another. There should be a S.D.H. Barbie. She can have smeared makeup and a martini glass clutched in her plastic fingers. I'm going to write to Mattel now.  Cheers to Christmastime everyone!

{Not everyone saw me miss the chair, but one guy did and he poked Jonathan and said, "Hey, your wife just fell off her chair".  Jonathan told me that he replied, "Oh don't worry, she does that all the time". God, I love that man. }

A Gradual Descent

     This past Saturday while trudging through a thin layer of snow to bring in a horse from the back field, it occurred to me that we've been introduced to winter temperatures in a much more gentle fashion this year (minus the Oct. snowstorm that was like a bad acid trip). As I went through the path between the hedgerow, into the open field the wind caressed my face with silky cold air, causing my cheeks to grow pink. For a moment, I was captivated by the incredible pastel palate across the westerly sky as the sun began to sink below the Catskills. I even smiled.

    Each week I look ahead for the upcoming forecast. A few weeks ago the presence of a 60 degree day in the weekly roster would make my heart soar. With the exception of mud and continuous blanket changes for the horses that is a blessed temperature for this time of year. Then I let my expectations drop to a more realistic number, mid-50's would be just fine, even low 50's, totally acceptable. Yesterday I was outside hanging up Christmas decorations in the crisp 45 degree sunshine, with no gloves on and strangely enough it felt tolerable.  Now I'm no rube when it comes to northeastern winters, so I know it's going to get ugly at some point. There will be bitter cold, winds that feel like a dish towel snapping at your face, snowstorms, power outages, etc. It's all coming. But for now 44 is the new 74 around these parts. 

   

Sick Musings

   I'm really, really curious about something. Is there any reason why the folks who make cough syrup can't make it taste any less toxic? And who came up with the brilliant combo of "cherry menthol"?  Why not "earthworm dung peppermint"?  Or "rotting leaves bubble gum"?  The stuff is just disgusting and the flavor actually lingers forever in your mouth. It envelops the tongue with its poisonous goo, which allows small amounts to seep down the throat with each swallow.  Maybe that's the goal to help quell the coughing, but I'm feeling like I'd rather cough than endure this heinous assault of my taste buds.  The taste also induces immediate nausea.  I'd like to talk to these cough medicine developers and give them a piece of my mind. If we're sick, then why kick us when we're down? We need to feel better when we take the medicine, not worse.  I'm of the opinion that the folks behind the Tussin flavor department are sadistic bastards.  I remember taking a green liquid cough medicine as a kid and that was no better than this cherry garbage. In thirty years they can't improve upon that flavor? I'm not buying it.  They don't WANT to make it taste better.  They chuckle amongst themselves in their little white coats, delighted with the prospect of grossing out millions of poor, coughing victims. I bet they did come up with a nicely flavored cough medicine, but then chose not to market it.  Instead they keep those private batches for themselves, or to give out to special friends and family as Christmas gifts.  It's all a conspiracy against the coughing public.  So in addition to body aches, stuffy head, sneezing, coughing, and blowing my nose, I now have a vile flavor in my mouth that even a cup of strong Irish tea is having trouble erasing.  Four words...I want my Mommy.

Was that really necessary?

   Last week we had a truly epic October snow storm. I was on the verge of committing a crime, or killing myself in the hours before the storm, because I couldn't freaking believe that it was going to SNOW in October.  I walked around the stable in a haze, making sure to avoid direct eye contact with my customers, muttering oaths under my breath and going over a checklist of what needed to be done for storm prep.  It was terrible.  The only thing that briefly cheered me up was a quickie trip to the store for some last minute provisions. NO, I didn't buy milk and bread like all the other dummies.  I bought essentials...cat food, seltzer, vodka and American cheese (from the deli counter, not that gross crap wrapped in cellophane).  The fun was watching my fellow Americans grocery shop like it was the last time they'd ever be allowed in a grocery store. The vibe was positively frantic in there. People were freaking out. The liquor store was a much calmer environment. Drinkers know how to get themselves by.       And it never hurts to have an extra bottle of hooch in the house for emergencies. By the time I got into my car the first flakes of snow had begun to drift down from the sky in a lazy, nonchalant manner.  That changed in about a half hour. The snow became a driving, relentless blizzard that lasted all thru the night. We awoke to a ridiculous scene of mountains of snow piled on the cars, patio furniture, roofs, etc. At least 20 inches dropped at our house.  I really wanted to cry. Or have a screwdriver for breakfast. Wisely, I did neither of those things and waded down to the barn and fed the horses. Because that's what you do when you run a barn. It's like the post office, it doesn't matter what crazy shit weather you're getting you have to do your job. I admit it did help to have to go about the day doing the normal chores in a near lobotomized state, like the old Dunkin Donuts commercial when the guy repeats, "Time to make the donuts" over and over again.

 Enough about that nightmare. The snow has all melted at our house. The leaves are still on the trees, sort of, and it's going to be in the mid sixties this week. Amen.

What are people thinking?

Here are some random things that I've been thinking about lately:


When someone tells you that they have a very high threshold for pain, kick them as hard as you can on their shinbone and note the reaction. It's a good way to weed out the liars from your life. 
Why do people feel the need to mention their particular threshold for pain? Do they think it makes them a member of some kind of super human sub-race? I swear, I've had three people tell me about their fancy schmancy, high falutin' tolerance for pain in the last month and I'm damn sick of it. I KNOW none of the people who said that to me have even the slightest tolerance for any kind of pain. It's just ridiculous. And it's been bothering me. I feel better just writing that down. Next time I see them I'm going to monkey bite each of the high pain tolerator's right inside their inner arm flesh.  You know who has a high tolerance for a pain? People that don't talk about it.  It's like bragging about being ambidextrous. Who gives a crap? Big deal you can write with both hands. Cure cancer, then I'll be impressed. I find it odd that some folks just like to brag about themselves in bizarre ways. Is it for attention? Do they want to possess a certain stature in society? Like, "I'm so frigging superior that I can take a bullet to the chest, while simultaneously writing a page from Shakespeare with both hands. Oh, and I'm double jointed".   


I just started taking an online writing class, which is proving to be a lot of fun (and duh, educational). However, there is one smarty pants in the class, who actually bragged that he is naturally skilled in every aspect of writing. He wrote that. It made me want to email him and say, "Really? Then why the hell are you here genius??"  Maybe he didn't mean it that way and it was just the way he wrote it that made him sound like a bragging jackass. Maybe I should feel sorry for him because he lacks the ability to properly express himself through words. Maybe I shouldn't concern myself with stupid stuff like this and I'd get a lot more work done.